Mansfield Falls to Franklin 67-61 in the MIAA D1 South Quarterfinals

Mansfield lost a tough game to the Franklin Panthers on Saturday 67-61 after an all out duel.

Both teams were evenly matched for the game, edging past each other but never gaining an all-out advantage. 

"I really think in that type of game... it's who hits a shot late [in the game]," Mansfield head coach Michael Vaughan said. "I knew at one point on of us was going to get a back-to-back stop [aka score], I was hoping it was going to be us, but tip our hats off to a great Franklin team."

The first period saw Mansfield in the lead, gaining a seven-point advantage. But in two minutes Franklin battled back to lessen Mansfield's lead to only 15-14. 

The tables turned during the second period, with Franklin pushing past Mansfield with eight points at 28-20, but Mansfield came back to end the half with 29-28 over the Panthers.

“The game plan coming in was to neutralize their pressure by extending possessions and making sure we get the best shot available,” Vaughan said. “Now that shot could come at three seconds, or that shot could come at 25 seconds into the shot clock. So the goal was to try to get easy baskets, which I thought we did a pretty good job of executing within the majority of the night with only one day to prepare for.”

Team captain Terrence O'Mara stepped up during the entire game, scoring nearly half of the Hornet's points, with 27 points over the course of the game. 

“He doesn’t get a lot of accolades throughout the season, doesn’t get a lot of credit, his name’s not in the paper every night, but he’s the steady guy who’s given me 25 minutes a night,” Vaughan said of O’Mara. “Some nights he’ll score five, some nights he’ll score 12, but when the game’s on the line he goes out and drops 23 the other night and 27 tonight.”

The last period saw much of the same back and forth between the two teams. Mansfield answered every time Franklin took a small lead, and was in the lead in the literal last minute 61-60.

Franklin, however, was able to keep possessions during the last minute and came out on top 67-61.

Mansfield's Terrance O'Mara lead the team in scoring with 27 points, followed by Freshman Brendan Hill with 13 points. Michael Hershman scored with eight points, followed by Brian Hershman with six, Ryan DeAndrade with five and Gregory Romanko with two points.